From Time To Time
by Carmilla
Summary: A little time after a hard day. Frank and Trapper slash, challenge response.


TITLE: From Time to Time

AUTHOR: Carmilla

PAIRING: Frank/Trapper

RATING: Mild R

SUMMARY: A little time after a long day. For katiemariie as part of the fic exchange. Probably not quite what you were hoping for, but I couldn't seem to write the pairing any other way than this.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, I make no money from this, don't sue me please.

* * *

Frank was squinting over his work, surgical gloves slippy from their coating of blood, and cursing quietly under his breath. It had been a very long shift, and he was the last to finish; the nurses were needed in aftercare, and the other doctors were already getting washed and changed. A pair of steady hands appeared in the periphery of his vision, holding the wound open a little further.  
  
He didn't look up.  
  
"Nurse, would it be possible to get some more light here?" he said, with as much bite in his tone as he could muster beneath the bone-deep exhaustion that had settled on him.  
  
"It's me," said Trapper John, quietly, reaching up to adjust the lamp.  
  
Frank had known that. He always knew. But it helped to pretend that he didn't. He finished the operation in silence, and Trapper seemed to have set aside his store of snide comments for once, only making a slight noise in the back of his throat when Frank set a stitch crookedly.  
  
Frank didn't look at him until they had taken the patient through to the ward and gone back to clean up. He didn't look because he knew exactly what he would see when he did, and he knew what it meant, and as long as he hadn't seen it he didn't have to think about the fact that he really didn't mind what it meant nearly as much as he should. Margaret, he thought to himself. Margaret would probably still be awake; might be sitting up waiting for him, and wasn't that a nice thought? Whether it was or not, it couldn't prevent the catch of anticipation he felt as he finally did look up, and met Trapper's gaze, or the slow burn that started in the pit of his stomach (and in lower regions too) when he read it.  
  
It was one of those times again. He had known. He always knew.  
  
"Hawk's in the Swamp," Trapper said, his voice low and steady. His voice was always steady when this happened, damn the man. "I mentioned something about Nancy. He won't expect me for a while." He'd named a pretty redhead who'd been on the first shift that afternoon.  
  
Frank nodded, rocking back on his heels. He'd given up fighting it.  
  
Trapper closed the distance between them in slow, deliberate steps. He traced a rough thumb over Frank's lips, which parted almost without him realising that he'd done it. Almost.  
  
Trapper's other hand went to the top button of his shirt.  
  
"Here?" he asked nervously, his tone emerging far higher than he'd meant it to, almost a squeak. Trapper shushed him as he deftly began to undo his buttons. That was right. They didn't talk, not at these times.  
  
Soon they were both naked, and Frank stood shivering, half-hard, arms pulled tight across his chest. North Korean nights were unforgiving, and the thin tent walls did little to keep out the cold. Trapper knelt on the pile he had made of their clothes, and swallowed him whole.  
  
It passed in a blur, as it always did. Tight, wiry curls against his palms, the burn of stubble against his lips, the hard body pressing against him, sensations at once familiar from long use and always, always strange, necessary in ways he couldn't begin to articulate, and wouldn't try to. They made as little noise as possible, took as little time as they could. As Trapper breached him, fast and fierce but not brutal, he pushed his face into the clothes and smelt stale sweat and underneath it, the faint tang of dried blood. When he came, thrusting into a firm hand, he didn't much care which of their shirts he was staining. He felt Trapper's climax in a rush of heat and the spasms of fingertips against his hips, and yet again tried, without success, to make himself feel disgust.  
  
Afterwards they dressed, as quickly as they could. It was against the rules to look at each other until they were fully clothed again. When their eyes eventually met, Trapper made a little motion with his head. Frank would go back first. They couldn't arrive together; another small practical detail that had to be taken into account but was never talked about.  
  
"Frank." The voice was cold, but it lacked its mocking edge, and that somehow made it worse. "I still don't like you, you know that? It doesn't make a difference."  
  
The final part of the ritual; maybe the most important. Frank managed a 'hmmph', a haughty sniff, a toss of his head.  
  
He didn't look back.  
  
END 


End file.
